CSC wins $220 million NT government outsourcing contract

A Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) led consortium has secured a $200 million IT outsourcing contract with the Northern Territory state government.

Under the terms of the five-year contract, the CSC team of local and international IT companies will provide desktop/LAN services for over 11,000 desktop computers across 33 government agencies. Services will be transferred to CSC from close of business 29 June 2001.

International companies involved in the deal include major partner Compaq and Hallmark Computers, Spherion, Fuji Xerox, Lexmark, Computer Associates and Macquarie Bank.

The agreement also calls for the consortium to invest around $5 million into the NT to develop the local IT industry.

A spokesperson for the NT government said of the 110 staff with the Department of Corporate Information Services (DCIS), who looked after desktop/LAN services, 80 will move across to consortium companies. On the fate of the other 30 staff, 15 will be taking a redundancy and 15 will be redeployed within the public service.

Local IT companies involved in the deal include Connected Solutions Group and DEC Installations in Darwin, XLCOM, NT Business Machines and HainsNET in Alice Springs, NT Technology in Katherine and Switch.com in Tennant Creek.

Paul Sharpe, CSC's senior account executive for the NT said: "Because of the remote locations of many of the government agencies, the involvement of local Northern Territory companies is essential to providing effective service delivery."

This contract is the largest of the contracts awarded so far in the government's $500 million strategy to outsource various IT infrastructure. The five-year strategy was announced in December 1998.

Seven contracts in total will be awarded through this initiative, with one, for a data centre, yet to be tendered.

An electronic messaging contract was awarded to CSM in June 1999 and in September 1999, a $110 million contract was won by Cable & Wireless Optus to provide voice, data, mobile and Internet services to government agencies across the state.

DMR was awarded the contract for mainframe applications development and maintenance in March 2001.

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